Windmill Festival to Virtual Funtown- a Kern Culture Success story

How about a brand identity system that is universal in its presence and distinct in terms of application? That is exactly what our team executed for Event Capital’s Windmill Festival as we set up a precipitable yet discrete identity – ‘Windmill Festival Virtual FunTown’, a new event under Windmill Festival. We at Kern Culture catalyzed their brand awareness by making the branding relatable and easily identifiable.

There is a very slim chance that you don’t already know about the famous Windmill Festival. Event Capital has been creating a fun learning and knowledge experience for young kids and is known for hosting Windmill Festival- India’s largest Kid’s Festival. The event aims at curating outdoor entertainment for the urban family where the child is the epicenter of the said curation.

The Project Story

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To offer an immersive experience amidst the pandemic challenges, we found it imperative to establish a strong virtual masterplan for the on-ground Windmill Festival.

With all kinds of public gatherings banned, the team conceptualized, planned, and designed the entire virtual campaign for Windmill Festival Virtual Funtown.

To maintain the brand-connect, a Virtual Funtown was constructed that was desired to offer extra-ordinary virtual experiences similar to that of their on-ground event. As a Kid’s Festival, we had to make sure that the event constantly grasps the Kids’ attention while accommodating smart and informative content.

As we worked on an extensive social-media marketing plan, various strategies were designed and implemented to establish an informative brand awareness around the event. Read on to find out more about our social-media approach for this project.

The Challenges

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The entire concept of transferring the experiences of an on-ground event to a virtual platform is a challenge in itself. Migrating from on-ground to a virtual space meant that the visual presentation of the event would change too. Thus one of our primary concerns was to preserve the identity of the nationally-famous event during this transition to establish brand recall. The other challenge was to present the event as much more than just amusement, to entice the parents to enroll their kids for the same.

Why a separate identity – Windmill Festival Virtual Funtown?

Windmill Festival owns its place as the largest, one-of-its-kind kid’s festival in the country. There is a great amount of brand loyalty and market share captured over the years since people love the 2 days of interaction, games, education, and amusement. It had been very substantial to keep that image and purpose intact. To do so, a sub-brand – Windmill Festival Virtual Funtown was introduced as the festival moved to a digital space. Kern Culture played a vital role in creating this endorsed brand architecture and the name Windmill Festival – Virtual Funtown. Virtual Funtown has now become a separate entity which also allows Event Capital to further develop the product and make it more robust, something that they exclusively offer in the virtual space.

From Windmill to a global, virtual Funtown: Strategy and Approach

Modern problems require modern solutions. So we encouraged our client to opt for an isometric route and create a separate branding for the Virtual Funtown. This meant that the digital campaign had to be top-notch to ensure the visibility and allure of the event. Unique hashtags were articulated for the Brand Recall– such as ‘#WMFVirtualFuntown and #StayIndoorsWithWindmill. The brand story had to be further strengthened by making the campaign relevant to the ongoing pandemic and its nuances. For this, the brand mascot Windy was used to highlight the importance of staying indoors and fighting the pandemic.

To grab the attention of our target audience we created a visual delight on the social media pages for parents and kids. We fueled our digital marketing campaign with various activities such as polls, animations, and Giphy GIFS along with some stickers. Interactive content like puzzles, opinion polls, Q&As, animated posts, and contests were used to generate a buzz over social media.

For an event so big, we had to take it a step further. So we incorporated Augmented Reality (AR) Filters and GIFs to give the viewers and participants a unique and unforgettable experience. These strategies were incorporated to enhance event engagement across various online platforms.  All in all, the branding and marketing campaign for Event Capital’s Windmill Festival- Virtual Funtown was designed to be wholesome and it reflected significantly in the results. With over 700 participants, a significant increase in engagement across various platforms was observed.

Positively magnificent numbers make everything better. Don’t they?
The goal of outdoing an intensive rebranding from the on-ground Windmill Festival to the Windmill was achieved with our digital campaign as we were able to reach out to 3.2 Million parents, out of which 120.6K actively engaged with our posts. Moreover, we could get 65,479 of our viewers to click on the registration link.
These stats are not just numbers.
The strategic engagement and virtual interaction contributed heavily to brand awareness as well as the positive turnout for the said event.
So that’s how tactical branding and marketing helped us take a renowned on-ground event experience smoothly to a virtual platform. Centering our approach to the project on familiarity and engagement, we could convert our vision into actual clicks and participant-turnout. By using the existing, recognizable brand mascot, we helped Windmill Festival spread a message relevant to current times while maintaining a dependable brand connect. As we created a virtual event-experience, we helped the brand stay relevant and efficient during changing times. This challenging project would surely be one of our most creatively satisfying tasks.
Do you have a brand to boost? Are you ready to take your brand and online presence to another level? Get in touch with us at connect@kernculture.com